A Karen in Paris: Lèche-vitrine

Today, I went on a mission to do some shopping. My primary goal was to browse. In French it's called lèche-vitrine (literally window-licking), and it's something I've seen quite a bit of here Paris. People walking on the street (most likely to work) will stop dead in their tracks to admire window displays. It's pretty awesome. My secondary goal was to get Clinique eye makeup remover, and lastly was to pick up a few "French-looking" items to tone down my "Americanness" quotient somewhat. I went to the beautiful "Galleries Lafayette" Galleries Lafayette Website and got the makeup remover...and spoke only French to do so, thankyouverymuch. I met a really nice man named Mathieu at a jewelry counter across from Clinique, and we had a lively conversation (NOT in French) for about 20 minutes. We talked about some good places to go out, as my friends and I had a hard time finding a good spot in "the gayborhood" (Le Marais) last night. Mathieu knows the gayborhood well (if you know what I mean), and was able to suggest some places that may be good for us to try next time. We're going to become friends on Facebook, at his request.

The galleries are across the street from the Òpera
(All of this is right near my school)

Inside Galleries Lafayette

The lady in shopping Dior was so elegant.

So, I went to the "Gourmet Foodstore" in the GL to just admire some beautiful food displays and see the world of French gourmet. It was so cool. When I walked in, the salt display took my breath away. And it was just salt.

Salt display!

Fun English words on French products

It was really cool to see the gourmet side of the shopping...the Wegmans/Lunds & Byerly's of Paris. I did end up getting a few small snacky-type things, cookies, pretzels (hard to find here), popcorn (salt & vinegar flavored!), and plain Lays potato chips. I'm not even a potato chip fan, really, but for some reason here I'm craving them. The chips here have really "out there" flavors. Like...chicken, mustard, cheeseburger, roasted turkey and thyme, Bolognese, and smoked ham. Lays flavors (website) in French (Side note: they have turnip chips here, and I'm tempted to try them...but I haven't been bold enough to do so.) The store also had an "American food" section. It featured pancake mix, Betty Crocker cake mixes (from the UK, actually), pancake mix, yellow mustard, and peanut butter. It was cool.

American Food

In the end, I didn't buy any clothing at GL. It was fun to look at everything, but most of what I looked at was waaaaaay more than I wanted to spend. It was probably the equivalent to a Bloomingdales or Nordstrom. Maybe even Neiman Marcus. In the end, I took Tressa's suggestion and went to H&M, which was much more budget friendly. I got some very "French" things, and picked up a little black dress that I just couldn't leave without.